Work Or Hell? Essay, Research Paper

37,000 transnational or multinational corporations with their 200,000 subsidiaries control 75 percent of all world trade in commodities, manufactured goods, and services. These corporations, such as Nike, Reebok, and Levi?s, are cheating other small countries that manufacture their products. Michael Jordan alone makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. An individual works 10-hour shifts, six days a week to earn a monthly wage less than the cost of a pair of Nike shoes. Their monthly wages will be around $30.00 to $40.00. Lured by cheap and abundant labor, investment capital has poured in more than 18 billion dollars in the last three years from these third world countries. Large corporations prefer not to do their own manufacturing. They put the hard work to third world countries, which will do anything for money.

Not only are multinational corporations causing problems for third world countries, problems with farming are occurring in the United States. Family farms are being sold down to agribusiness and factory style farming. According to the U.S. department of Agriculture almost 90% of the total income of rancher or family style farms now come from the outside. They have to get outside jobs to even survive. Child labor in farming is another issue. Human Rights Watch stated that child farm workers in the U.S. work 12 to 14 hour days, often suffering pesticide poisoning, heat-related illness, machine and knife related injuries and life long disabilities. Many of them are forced to work without access to toilet or hand washing facilities or adequate drinking water. The majority of these workers are Latino, so there is a racial issue brought to hand. Farm work is considered the most dangerous work open to children in the United States. Human Rights Watch estimated that there are at least one million child labor violations in the U.S. each year. These children are working to survive, but they won?t survive much longer if they aren?t given better working conditions.

These multinational corporations that are taking over small farms and third world countries are only interested in achieving an acceptable rate of return on invested capital, gaining market share, or ensuring its longtime competivness, rather than support these issues. There are many benefits for these third world countries to do the corporations dirty work. The only thing good about them is in a way they gain somewhat of an economic development.

My main concern is for the individuals who have to work 10-14 hours a day, and get underpaid. I can barely live off of forty dollars a week, little alone forty dollars a month. These people barely have enough money to have somewhere to live and put food on the table. It?s a reality check for me! I think that organizations need to be formed to help these third world workers, who are overworked and underpaid, to get higher wages and less working hours.